Where we workBookkeeping across Metro Vancouver and BC
Based in West Vancouver, working with businesses in Vancouver, North Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey and across British Columbia. Online, at one price.
The areas we work in most
What is different from one to the next
We are in West Vancouver, and the work is done online, so where your business sits changes nothing about the scope, the price or how fast you hear back. That is the short answer, and the rest of this page is what is actually different from one part of the region to the next.
What does change by area is the kind of business, and the kind of business decides which parts of the books are hard. A distributor in Burnaby and a consultancy downtown have different sales tax obligations, different reconciliation work, and different things that go wrong.
Bookkeeping in West Vancouver
This is where we are. It is the one place where handing something over in person is straightforwardly possible, and almost nobody takes it up, because there is nothing that has to change hands.
The North Shore side of our work runs heavily to professional practices, contractors, and holding companies that exist alongside an operating business. A holding company is usually a second set of books and a second year-end, and it is worth saying so before the quote.
Bookkeeping in North Vancouver
North Vancouver carries a lot of the North Shore’s trades and construction work, plus the marine and light industrial strip along the waterfront and the retail along Lonsdale.
Trades are where payroll and sales tax get entangled. Subcontractors, holdbacks, WorkSafeBC and materials all land in the same month, and PST on materials for real property work runs opposite to how people expect: you generally do not charge it on improving real property, and you generally do pay it on what goes into the job.
Bookkeeping in Vancouver
The widest mix in the region, and the one where the 1 October 2026 change matters most: a large part of what Vancouver sells is professional services, and five kinds of them start carrying PST that day.
Restaurants, cafés and retail bring the other recurring problem, which is that a single receipt carries taxable and exempt lines at once. That is a point-of-sale configuration question far more often than it is a bookkeeping question, and it compounds daily until someone checks it.
Bookkeeping in Burnaby
Burnaby holds much of the region’s light industrial and distribution space, along with the retail around Metrotown. That mix makes it the most goods-heavy part of Metro Vancouver we work in.
A business that sells goods has PST obligations a service business does not, and the threshold people bring with them from GST is not one of them: there is no $30,000 to grow into first. The one exemption needs a low sales figure and no established commercial premises together, so a warehouse or a shopfront puts you inside the system whatever the figure says.
Stock bought for resale is exempt if you are registered and a cost to you if you are not, which is why staying outside the system is usually the expensive choice for anyone holding inventory.
Bookkeeping in Coquitlam
Coquitlam and the rest of the Tri-Cities run to construction, trades and family-run businesses, a good number of them incorporated with the owners on the payroll.
That combination puts the decisions that matter at year end, not in the monthly work: salary against dividends, what the shareholder account is doing, and whether the corporate return and the owners’ personal returns are being prepared by people who can see each other’s numbers. We prepare both, which is the reason it comes up here.
Bookkeeping in Richmond
Richmond is import, distribution and cross-border trade, plus everything that sits around the airport. It is also where bilingual bookkeeping stops being a convenience and starts being the point: this is the densest concentration of Chinese-speaking owners in the region, and the CRA and the province write to all of them in English.
The tax question that comes with imports is self-assessment. Goods brought into BC for use here often arrive with no PST on the invoice, because the seller had no obligation to charge it — and the obligation does not disappear, it moves to you and goes on your own return. Customs handles GST; nobody handles the PST but you.
Bookkeeping on the North Shore
The North Shore means West Vancouver, North Vancouver and the smaller communities behind them, and for our purposes it is one service area, not three. We are on it, so if proximity matters to you at all, this is where it counts for most.
It is worth being straight that proximity should not matter much. Nothing in the monthly cycle needs anyone to be nearby, and a North Shore business gets the same service, the same turnaround and the same price as one in Kelowna.
Bookkeeping in Surrey
Surrey is the largest business base south of the river and the most varied — construction, trucking and logistics, trades, and a great deal of retail spread across several town centres.
Distance from us is the thing people raise about Surrey, and it is the thing that matters least. There is no drop-off, no office visit and no travel charge, so a Surrey business is priced on its transaction volume exactly as a West Vancouver one is.
Beyond the region
Everywhere else in British Columbia
The areas above are where most of the work is, and they are not a boundary. Delta, Langley, Port Moody, Maple Ridge, New Westminster and the rest of the Lower Mainland are the same service at the same price, and so are Victoria, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Kamloops, Prince George and everything between them.
The reason it works is not that we are prepared to travel. It is that nothing in the job requires it: the accounting file is online, receipts arrive from a phone, and GST returns to the CRA and PST returns to the province are filed electronically no matter who files them. That part of bookkeeping was never in person.
Outside BC is a different question. The books are the same work anywhere in Canada, but the sales tax is not, and PST is a provincial system with rules that stop at the border. Ask before assuming we are the right fit for a business based in another province.
Questions
What people ask about location
Which cities do you serve?
Vancouver, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey and the rest of Metro Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, plus Delta, Langley, New Westminster and the Tri-Cities. Beyond the region: Victoria, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Kamloops, Prince George and everywhere else in British Columbia. The work is done online, so location changes neither the scope nor the price.
Does it cost more if I am further away?
No. The fixed monthly price is set by your transaction volume, the number of accounts to reconcile, what needs filing and which sales channels you use. Distance is not one of the inputs, and there is no travel charge, because there is no travel.
Do I have to come to your office?
No, and almost nobody does. You grant access to your accounting file the way you would add an employee, receipts arrive by email or from the app on your phone, and returns are filed electronically. There is nothing that has to change hands.
Do you do bookkeeping in Mandarin or Cantonese?
Yes to both, and it is worth saying how. Written Chinese is shared, so everything in writing — your questions, our answers, the explanation of a CRA or Ministry of Finance letter — works the same either way, and the whole of this site is published in Chinese and English. Spoken conversations are in Mandarin or English. Cantonese-speaking clients are welcome and well served; calls just happen in Mandarin.
Can you file GST and PST for a business anywhere in BC?
Yes. GST returns go to the Canada Revenue Agency and PST returns to the BC Ministry of Finance, and both are filed online for a business anywhere in the province. No municipality in BC levies a general sales tax of its own, so the rate on an ordinary invoice does not change with your address. Short-term accommodation is the exception: it carries the municipal and regional district tax on top of PST wherever that has been adopted, and Vancouver adds a further levy.
Wherever you are, the first step is the same
Tell us where your books stand. A written scope and a fixed monthly price within one business day, and nothing set up until you say yes.